


D.A.R.E. To Resist

by gala_apples



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabe doesn't know who he'd be without drugs. An AU in which the American DEA is the biggest force in the government.</p>
            </blockquote>





	D.A.R.E. To Resist

Gabe remembers when the phrase was just a phrase. Or, he doesn’t remember, not personally. But he’s heard from people older than him. He’s one of the few people on their side that like to sit around and listen to the stories. Gabe can spend the whole day listening to men tell him what it was like to drop acid at a laser light show and nearly freak out, or twenty people at a party with fifteen joints between them hotboxing a garage. Entire warehouses of people rolling on E and hugging strangers like best friends. Most people don’t want to hear it. They think it’s depressing, cruel even, like talking to poor kids about first class airplane rides. It’s something nobody can ever have, so why talk big about it?

Gabe’s not one of those whiners. He figures it’s like reading a fairy tale. It’s a world you wish were true, and even if it isn’t, there’s this part in your heart that decides Godfuckingdamnit, I will believe in fairies. So he collapses on whatever floral couch will hold his weight and hears all about what the world was like when 'The War On Drugs' was just a phrase.

Mind you, there aren’t a lot of people to tell him stories. There aren’t too many people older than him on his side of things. You don’t exactly get a long run in this business. The government side has a lot more. And then there are the vast majority of older people, neutral until it affects them, and then they see Gabe and everything he stands for is right, and they have to make a choice.

In the end, it all comes down to choices. Gabe got in it because he chose fun over tedium. For the longest time he only met people that were on his side for the same reason; because smoking up or shooting up was worth it. He stands strong in his belief that as hallucinogenicless life is not a life worth living. However literal that has to be.

For others it’s different. For the vast majority it’s because if they don’t they will die. It’s either get their medication or have their blood sugar raise until they pass out and fall into a coma. Chances are if they’ve got a recruit that’s thirty or older, it’s because the person just found out they have allergies or high blood pressure and is willing to kill others before they die.

And for the select few, it’s because the only way they can survive is through balancing their chemicals with synthetics. He loves Mikey and Pete, would stand in the way of their bullet, if it gave them the time to get away. But he’s seen them when a supplier gets shot and Atti or Serra dries up for a bit. They need what they take.

Gabe’s not in charge or anything nearly that powerful. What he does is highly fucking dangerous. He has to deliver drugs from headquarters to whatever person’s gonna be the dealer that day. At any given time he might have a full backpack of bricks of cocaine, or shoes with ibuprofen sewn into the tongues. He’s got no illusions about it. One day he’s gonna get shot dead. If he’s lucky. If he’s not they’ll decide they want to get some information from him, and he’ll have no choice but to bite his own tongue until he chokes on his blood and drowns. He’s not giving anyone else up.

Sometimes Mikey or Pete come with him. They’re not in high school anymore, they were both pulled out before their insanity became too obvious. But they can both pull off the look, which helps explain away the backpacks and studded belts that have acid taped to the inside. Usually they’re doing other things, like tucking pamphlets into library books at the high school, or spraypainting nasty slogans. They’re basically PR.

Mostly they don’t talk about what happens during the day. They crash in the house they share with Ryan and unless an middle aged woman tried to pay him for the joints in a striptease, nothing needs to be said. Ryan makes dinner almost every night, occasionally he goes out to see his boyfriend. Spencer can’t come to the house because he hasn’t chosen a side. Apparently the Smiths are well aware that Ryan is a fugitive -once you’re sixteen and witness someone getting intoxicated, if you don’t turn them in you’re an accessory, which highly fucked Ryan over when Mr Ross died of cirrhosis- and they don’t care. Gabe and Pete and Mikey can’t afford to be that cavalier.

After they eat they retire to their room. Gabe’s supposed to share with Ryan, each room has two bed frames. Instead their room has three twin mattresses crammed beside each other on the floor. There isn’t room for anything else, but it’s not like they have a lot of things anyway. Guitars and notebooks and a few changes of clothes. Ryan’s the only one that gets reimbursed for his troubles in money. Gabe gets his shrooms or salvia or cough syrup, Pete gets Atti, and Mikey gets Serra.

Sometimes he thinks they resent him a bit for being in this for the wrong reasons, because he wants to see pretty things rather than because he can’t stop his brain from collapsing. But he reminds himself a soldier is a soldier. He’s fighting, just like they are, he can get murdered and have it be entirely legal just like they can.

And they’ve got to know he loves them. He says it every time one of them leaves the house, just in case it’s the last time he ever sees them. He doesn’t want his last words to Pete to be ‘stop climbing my back, assface, I’m not a ladder’, or telling Mikey to wash his fucking hair already.

Even if they don’t believe the words -and he couldn’t really blame them if they didn’t, being told that yes, you were insane but no, you weren’t allowed to be helped doesn’t exactly make people trust others- Gabe thinks that his actions speak loudly enough. He might not always let them come first, but most of the time he’s the one to walk to the bathroom and get the wet facecloth to clean them up. He kisses them in front of Ryan, or Monique, or anyone else without any bashfulness.

The truth is, he’s grateful to the drugs. He’s been grateful for drugs since he was thirteen years old, but it’s never been stronger than it is now. He’s never had sex without being on something. The one time he tried to masturbate sober he jerked himself raw without coming, or even standing at more than half mast. Gabe’s not sure if he could suck a cock if the pot film on his brain didn’t make connections between the bitter taste and coffee. He’s not sure he’d want to jerk off Mikey with one hand, Pete the other if he didn’t have the speed of caffeine running through him. He’s not sure he could let someone fuck him if he wasn’t on E and any feeling every point of contact as the most incredibly blissful caress imaginable.

Bottom line, he’s a gay drug user in love with two legally insane convicts. He might not have long for this world, but while it exists he’s going to party.


End file.
